excerpt from The Mindful Woman

I vividly remember a time when I completely understood what the Buddha meant about seeing the miracle of single flower being life changing. My husband, Gene, and I had a trans-Pacific-ocean courtship. To help bridge the miles, he once sent me red roses. After my sons were asleep, I took the time to luxuriate in every aspect of the fullest rose, exploring its textures, colors, and the varying shapes of petals, stem, and stamen. To my surprise, tears of joy began to slip from my eyes, and I felt enveloped in love and connected to both the man who sent the roses and their creator as well.

Although my rapt attention to the flower was the act of a young woman wildly in love, the experience of it has become an enduring touchstone reminding me of the power and joy a few mindful moments can bring. Thirty-some years later, I clearly remember that particular rose and can revisit the pro¬found sense of wonder and awe I experienced while focusing on it.

Excerpt from Coping with Erectile Dysfunction

It is easier and healthier to deal with physical and psychological changes together rather than in isolation. This is particularly true of ED, which affects you, your partner, and your relationship. To pretend otherwise is to violate a major tenet of mental health: Do not fool yourself. ED is truly your common foe. The likelihood of overcoming ED increases significantly if you work as a team.

excerpt from When Good Men Behave Badly

The healthy awareness of the need for twinship would allow you to say to your wife or partner, You know, I feel really lost sometimes with out all the special times we used to have together. It just seems like having kids and get ting used to each other and money problems have really taken their toll. I guess you must feel the same way. Here you, as a man, shift from needing your partner to be a mirror reflecting you to recognizing the ways in which the two of you are profoundly alike. She is no longer the enemy, but rather a comrade along the difficult road of life. A comrade who is inevitably flawed, but no more fundamentally flawed than you.

Excerpt from Is He Depressed or What?

To put it very simply, women tend to think and process their feelings when they are depressed, and men tend to act. A man who takes action in the face of depression can either be extremely adaptive (such as going out to look for a job if he is feeling depressed about being unemployed) or extremely maladaptive (such as picking a fight and getting drunk to escape feeling bad about himself). Research studies report that when women describe what they actually do when they are depressed, they say, “I try to find out why I feel the way I do,” or “I try to analyze my mood” (Nolen-Hoeksema 1993). For men, the patterns are typically quite different. Most men report that they turn to an activity they enjoy or simply decide to distract themselves from the bad feelings: “I decide not to concern myself with my mood.” Of course, many people (especially men) are likely to respond with “What do you mean, depressed?”

by guest blogger Dr. C. Peter Bankart, author of Freeing the Angry Mind

The only answer that I have been able to come up with that makes any sense to me anyway is to demand of yourself to pay close attention; to be mindful and respectful of the natural world, to cultivate a wide universe of relationships, and to hold dear to your heart the philosophical and religious truths that sustain you. It is equally hard to let go of the illusion of permanence when things are good, as it is to recognize that the future is full of infinite possibilities, when everything seems stuck in the middle of a black and white winter.

excerpt from Do the Right Thing

Let’s talk about five ethical principles that you can use to guide your behavior and decision making in your personal and professional life (regardless of your line of work and living situation). These five principles can help you with both small and big ethical decisions. Subsequent chapters will look at each of the five principles in more detail.

The five basic ethical principles to live by are

• integrity
• competence
• responsibility
• respect
• concern.

While these five principles are certainly not cast in stone, they’re useful and productive way to think about how to live your everyday life. They can be applied to just above ethical situation.

Excerpt from The Untethered Soul

Very few people understand the heart. In truth, your heart is one of the masterpieces of creation. It is a phenomenal instrument. It has the potential to create vibrations and harmonies that are far beyond the beauty of pianos, strings, or flutes. You can hear an instrument, but you feel your heart. And if you think that you feel an instrument, it’s only because it touched your heart. Your heart is an instrument made of extremely subtle energy that few people come to appreciate.

by guest blogger Nina W. Brown, Ed.D., LPC, author of Children of the Self-Absorbed

Self-absorbed parents can intentionally, but mostly unintentionally, inflict wounds on their children. They do not see how what they do or say is wounding, and can become very upset and angry at such a charge. Nothing you do or say produces any empathy, understanding of your perspective, or acknowledgment of the wounding experience.

This pattern of wounding was set in childhood which has now carried over into your adulthood, and continues to exert it negative impact on you. Thus, even though you are an adult, you can still find yourself hurt, angry, frustrated and the like by something your parent said or did. You can even realize that you are reacting now just as you did when you were a child, but feel helpless and powerless to stop reacting as you do. It’s all very frustrating and unsettling. I’ll provide examples of this wounding, and give a couple of suggestions for coping.

excerpt from Serenity To Go

Carrying the world on your shoulders? ’Fess up. You’re not Atlas, and you’re simply not equipped to lug around all the planet’s—or your office’s—problems. Time to give yourself, your shoulders and back a relaxing stretch.

excerpt from Cool, Calm, and Confident: A Workbook to Help Kids Learn Assertiveness Skills.

For You To Know

Solving problems with other people takes thought and energy. Sometimes it is hard to put aside our angry feelings and try to work things out. Learning and remembering some problem-solving guidelines can make it easier to act and resolve your problems assertively.

C— Calm down. “You have to be calm before you try to solve a problem or you’ll be too angry to think clearly,” she said.

A— Allow a good amount of time. “You have to allow enough time to really sit and listen to each other and work on the problem.”

T— Think ahead. “If you think ahead about what you want to say, what is important to you, and how you might solve the problem, you will stick to the subject and solve things more quickly.”

T—Talk nicely. “No name calling or saying mean things to the other person.”

S— Stay focused on one problem. “Don’t talk about other problems or things that happened days or weeks ago. Just stick to the one problem you have today.”

excerpt from Coping with Cliques

starting off …

You’re thinking that you could never be the bully. Oh no, everyone likes you. Or maybe they don’t like you and they’ve teased you in the past, but you would never ever do to them what they did to you. Well, guess again. After all, you’re only human. If a situation presents itself, wouldn’t you be the slightest bit tempted? You probably would. But resist that temptation, or else the gossip-bully syndrome will go on and on, knocking everyone down and making school utterly and totally poisonous. You can choose to respond in a way that will make it stop.

Today is the 1-year anniversary of our blog, Off The Couch! To celebrate, we're having a book giveaway on Twitter. It's going on right now. For more details, check here.

April 13th is the 1-year anniversary of Off The Couch! To celebrate, we're having a book giveaway.

When: Tuesday, April 13 at 1pm ET (10am PT)

Where: Twitterverse

How to Participate:

1. Follow @NewHarbinger on Twitter.
2. On April 13 at 1pm ET (10am PT), visit http://twitter.com/NewHarbinger and retweet our current post.

Selection of Winners:

1. The first 12 people who retweet the post will receive a free book of their choice.
2. We will let the winners know that they have won, and the winners can DM us with the title of the book they want.
3. We will also have a couple bonus book giveaways throughout the day. At different times, we'll announce that whoever is the first person to retweet that current message will receive a book of their choice, so pay attention to our tweets all day!

Prize:

• We send each winner their specified book. Free book! Free shipping!

excerpt from Don’t Pick On Me

Bullies who pick on you like it when you get angry or upset. It gives them the satisfaction of knowing that whatever they did got to you. So if someone picks on you, it’s important to try not to let your feelings show.

by guest blogger Doreen A. Samelson Ed.D., MSCP, author of Feeding the Starving Mind.

Your body image is how your think and feel about your body. Poor body image is common in Western cultures that emphasize perfect young bodies. To improve your body image try the 6 steps of ACCEPT. Use 3 by 5 cards to make ACCEPTance cards for each step of ACCEPT.

Excerpt from The Body Image Workbook

Body image forms gradually, beginning in childhood. Life experiences lead some people to relate to their bodies in positive and satisfying ways, while other people travel a less enjoyable path. The factors that influence body image development can be divided into two basic categories:

1. The historical influences from your past are the forces that shaped how you came to view your appearance in the ways that you do.


2. The current influences are the events and experiences in everyday life that determine how you think, feel, and react to your looks.

Excerpt from The Anorexia Workbook

Mental Volleyball

At this point, you may be wondering if this is about anorexia or sports. Don’t worry—volleyball does relate to anorexia. How? Well, the strategy of volleyball is a great way to describe how you are responding to thoughts about yourself. Imagine that a volley ball match is going on inside your mind. Instead of volleying a ball back and forth, the teams inside your head are volleying thoughts about you.